“$_$ now we’re on the same page, girl,” Ismael replied.
“Quit thinking of me as cash, okay.”
* * *
ISIS continued its advance in the latter half of June. The group took control of a chemical factory, the country’s largest oil refinery, and two border stations between Syria and Iraq. Sykes-Picot, the agreement drawn up by Britain and France in 1916, allocating “spheres of influence” among Britain, France, and Russia, now existed only on paper—the Islamists held a single territory spanning Syria and Iraq. It was an enormous admission of failure for the government in Iraq to lose so much land—and an international border—to a nonstate actor. By the end of the month, the authorities in Baghdad had lost control over several more stretches of territory bordering Syria and Jordan.
June 29, 2014, was to be a memorable day for ISIS. Three important videos were posted via al-Hayat Media Center.
The first was fifteen minutes long and titled The End of Sykes-Picot. It showed a dark, bearded man swaggering around a captured Iraqi border station.
It was the Chilean from Norway, the enfant terrible of the Prophet’s Ummah and the man who’d been charged with uploading the video threatening the Norwegian government: Bastian Vasquez.
He strutted casually around abandoned buildings, past torn-down signs, stopping now and again to show discarded emblems from uniforms or point out rows of SUVs.
“Keep sending vehicles,” he addressed Obama. “They end up in our hands anyway!”
He displayed a row of prominent teeth with large gaps between them.
“And don’t forget diapers for your soldiers,” laughed a man behind the wheel of a white pickup with IRAQI BORDER CONTROL still written on the side.
Bastian spoke relaxedly and confidently in English. He peppered his sentences with Arabic words, every statement ending in “inshallah” or “wallahi,” and he made small talk in Arabic with the ISIS fighters who had taken the border station. They were dressed in desert fatigues, whereas Bastian sauntered around in a long tunic over short Salafi trousers. With a faded baseball cap on his head, he resembled a young Fidel Castro. Toward the end of the video he entered a room where a dozen or so men were imprisoned.
“Yazidis,” he spat in the direction of the men on the floor. “They worship Lucifer.” He looked briefly into the camera before leaving the room.
A viewer could assume the men were killed shortly afterward. ISIS did not keep prisoners of war. At the conclusion of the video, a police station near the border post is rigged with explosives and blown up. The dust settles and nasheeds—a cappella religious songs concerning battle and martyrdom—replace Bastian’s guided tour.
Another video posted that day, Breaking the Border, showed American-made military vehicles that had been seized by ISIS passing freely over yet another stretch of border, while bulldozers leveled the sand heaps demarcating Syrian and Iraqi territory.
The most important video was a speech by ISIS spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, the sole Syrian in the upper leadership of the organization.
“The time has come for those generations that were drowning in oceans of disgrace, being nursed on the milk of humiliation, and being ruled by the vilest of all people, after their long slumber in the darkness of neglect—the time has come for them to rise,” he said. “The sun of jihad has risen. The glad tidings of good are shining … Support your state, which grows every day!”
ISIS had become IS—the Islamic State.
“Listen to your caliph and obey him!” the Syrian urged. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was now the self-appointed leader of all the world’s Muslims.
The caliphate had been declared.
* * *
The following day, Ayan called her mother in Somaliland. She made no mention of the newly declared caliphate. She only wanted to wish the family well with Ramadan.
Sara and her sons had arrived in Hargeisa at the start of the month of fasting. Its annual observance was one of the pillars of Islam, an activity all healthy adults had to carry out in order to call themselves practicing Muslims. Everyone in the family home was fasting, except Ismael. He also refused to attend the mosque. Nor would he pray at home.
Sara had wept. “You’re bringing shame upon us!”
She threatened him with the wrath of God and the torments of hell.
“I’ve already lost two daughters, am I to lose you as well?”
Apostasy in Islam is obvious due to the clear actions required in the practice of the religion; the pillars are the declaration of faith, prayer, charity, fasting, and the pilgrimage to Mecca. Sara threatened to disown him but could not follow through on her threat. Eventually she gave in and allowed him to eat with his little brothers, who were not yet required to fast.
The rumors had preceded their arrival. Everyone had found out, relatives, neighbors, the whole street: Sara and Sadiq’s daughters have joined IS. In Somaliland, IS was considered a terrorist organization, spreading death and destruction like their own al-Shabaab. Ayan and Leila had joined the terrorists. The extended family mourned the “little girls,” who for the first time did not accompany their mother on the summer holiday.
The fear of losing more children tormented Sara. It gnawed at her thoughts, requiring ever more space in her mind. Memories of her firstborn resurfaced. She had been a teenager, narrow-hipped, and had spent a day and a night in labor. Eventually he ran out of air and was buried the same day he was born. That was in February 1993. Ayan was born in December of the same year.
After her daughters had left, she had been overwhelmed by fear of losing her two youngest boys. She did not feel they were safe in Bærum. Someone might lead them astray and away from her at any time. If you grew up in Norway, you became either an extremist or an atheist, that was her experience. She had to save Isaq and Jibril. Give them a sense of belonging in a solid, Muslim culture. Give them a healthy Muslim upbringing.
Child Welfare
